Last fling for So You Think

It is likely to be the six-year-old horse’s final racecourse appearance before he begins stud duties, with O’Brien – already victorious in all four English Classics this season – confident of another big-race triumph after So You Think defeated the Queen’s gallant Carlton House in the Prince of Wales’s Stakes at Royal Ascot.

However this one-and-a-quarter mile test will not be a formality. Godolphin have supplemented Thirsk Hunt Cup victor Farhh who was third to O’Brien’s superstar at the Royal meeting.

In-form John Gosden has earmarked the race for last year’s King George winner Nathaniel while Sir Henry Cecil’s multiple Group One winner Twice Over is a likely runner.

Andrew Balding’s Dante winner Bonfire is also entered.

Meanwhile, Gosden could send his top filly Izzi Top to the Breeders’ Cup in America after she backed up her win in York’s Middleton Stakes by landing the Group One Pretty Polly Stakes at The Curragh.

Given a supremely confident ride by jockey of the moment William Buick on unsuitably soft ground, Gosden has ambitious plans for Izzi Top.

“William said she didn’t like the ground, but not many like it that soft,” he said.

“A mile-and-a-quarter is her trip and she tends to pull herself up when she hits the front – she got a bit idle there in the last furlong.

“We’ll look at races like the Nassau Stakes at Goodwood and the Prix de l’Opera in France and we may think about the Breeders’ Cup, too. The best work she has ever done has been in the last few weeks.”

n Thomas Chippendale, a King Edward VII Stakes winner at Royal Ascot for Yorkshire owner Sir Robert Ogden, could reappear in the bet365 Gordon Stakes at Goodwood on July 31.

The Group Three contest is seen as a recognised trial for the St Leger, but the Sir Henry Cecil-trained colt is likely to swerve the Doncaster Classic if Aidan O’Brien’s Triple crown-seeking Camelot is in the line-up.

“He may have a couple more runs this season and I think there’ll be more to come from him next season,” said Ogden’s racing manager Barry Simpson.

Meanwhile, Aidan O’Brien says Camelot will have either one more outing or a racecourse gallop before his date with destiny at Doncaster.

The 2000 Guineas and Investec Derby hero kept his unbeaten record intact with a determined victory in Saturday’s Irish Derby and is now set for a midsummer break.

However, O’Brien played down talk of a potential clash with Cecil’s unbeaten wonderhorse Frankel in York’s Juddmonte International next month.

n French trainer Corine Barande-Barbe has asked police to investigate the positive sample returned by her champion horse Cirrus Des Aigles after his surprising second in the Prix d’Ispahan at Longchamp in May.

Barande-Barbe suspects foul play could be the reason last season’s Champion Stakes victor tested positive for “a massive” dose of an anti-inflammatory drug.

“I’m very surprised and very afraid because if someone can get to the horse they could kill him,” said the trainer, who came to prominence when her stable star defeated So You Think at Ascot.

n Michael Bell’s Set To Music will bid to win her second Oaks of the season at Haydock on Saturday.

The Queen’s well-backed filly already has the Warwickshire version to her name and will line up in the Bet365 Lancashire Oaks on Merseyside.

n The funeral of popular Northern jumps jockey Campbell Gillies will take place at Mortonhall Crematorium in Edinburgh at noon on Friday.

He died following a swimming pool accident in Corfu last Tuesday, a day before his 22nd birthday.